Is the Boris bandwagon an invincible juggernaut or a rickety transit van whose wheels could come off at any time? Right now, Johnson is certainly the man to beat and his camp are quietly pleased at the major progress he’s made in getting MPs on board to date. But others remain very wary, given how little scrutiny he’s had so far, and feel it’s best to get everything out in the open now before any coronation by the rank and file.
As I wrote last week, his supporters have privately already signed up more than 80 colleagues and the strategy of drip-feeding endorsements continues today. Iain Duncan Smith’s backing will surprise few, but it’s the kind of support that could have helped the other main ‘be-Leaver’ in the race, Dominic Raab. Similarly, last night’s ’92 Group’ hustings results, given the group’s members are on the Right of the party, confirmed Johnson has convinced many of those who have reason to suspect he could go wobbly once in power.
What is striking is how Johnson is picking up support from across the party. Whereas Jeremy Hunt’s slogan is ‘Unite to Win’ feels thin given his tiny number of Brexiteers on board, Boris has somehow managed to be all things to all factions (socially liberal types who liked Boris Mk1 as London Mayor, hardliners who admired Boris Mk2 leading Vote Leave). So far. A briefing for MPs this afternoon on polling by Lynton Crosby (the ‘Wizard of Oz’ who talks daily to Johnson) suggests he is reaching parts of the electorate (and selectorate) others cannot reach.
And its the endorsement of former Remainers from the centre-left of the party that catches the eye today, particularly Robert Buckland. Traditionally, Tory ‘wets’ have been more unified around one candidate than the Right, but last night’s private dinner for One Nation Caucus members showed how split they now are. Among those around the table were Buckland (Boris), Clarke (Stewart), Lidington (Hancock) and Morgan (Gove).
One Boris backer put it neatly this morning, saying they had joined the campaign “because we need people like me in the car with him steering”. Johnson may be at the wheel, but boy does he need help with his political satnav. The one big policy announcement he has made on tax appeared to unravel within minutes yesterday. Raab mercilessly mocked plans to give tax cuts to the ‘already wealthy’, while Rory Stewart did a very good job of pointing out Scots would get hammered by the accompanying rise in National Insurance.
It was a classic case of a bungled, poorly thought out policy and gave several MPs pause for thought. Most glaringly obvious was what a huge open goal it gave Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell to paint the Tories as the party of the rich, with little cash left for public services. As I said yesterday, the language of priorities is often the religion of conservatism and not just socialism. Liz Truss, who many think will become the first female Chancellor in Johnson’s team, was one of the few who enthusiastically backed his tax plan.
As we report today, Johnson is also coming under fire for the way he used the Peterborough by-election for his leadership campaign. Despite being warned by Tory chairman Brandon Lewis, he went ahead and filmed local candidate Paul Bristow as part of his launch video. Team Boris are relaxed about the whole thing, but one sceptical insider suggests it sums up a combination of ego combined with a slapdash approach to detail: “He was warned not to campaign, but once again couldn’t resist putting himself first. He thinks the rules don’t apply to him.”
As for Johnson’s strategy of avoiding contact with the media (as Matt Hancock put it this morning “We’ve got to ask the question, why not?”), that could well end very soon. I’m told he has in principle signed up to the ITV debate for the final two candidates but is reluctant to say so for fear of looking presumptious. One big worry among the Boris camp is that the multi-player TV hustings would gift Labour lots of ‘blue-on-blue’ clips that Corbyn will use on a loop at the next election. Rivals will see that as him avoiding the one-way pile-on that is sure to come in any six-way or eight-way debate.
Some quick-fire media questions will be unavoidable of course at his formal launch tomorrow. Still, the choice of our next PM really needs a sustained, live grilling as specialised by Andrew Neil (and Eddie Mair and others). Failing to answer the key questions (on Brexit extensions, backstops and more) never helped Theresa May, after all. The one person who can sabotage the Boris bandwagon may well be Boris Johnson himself. But that’s no reason to run away from a vigorous MoT.
We had four leadership launches yesterday. Hancock was bouncy, Raab was punchy, Hunt was polished and Gove was passionate. Each took swipes at Johnson, but it was Michael Gove who looked most vulnerable to a sudden collapse of support.
Despite all the solid work of his campaign video and backers, Gove’s decision to attack Johnson’s decision to ‘pull out’ in 2016 really was the news-making incident of the event. Many of us saw it as a student-style innuendo (the Sun splashes his ‘cheeky joke about Bojo’s sex life’) but even if it was sex-free it was ill-judged - precisely because it reminded everyone that Gove was the man who knifed his colleague three years ago.
As one of the rival leadership contenders put it to me yesterday: “If it was planned, it was an error of strategy. If it was done in the moment, then it was an error of temperament. Either way, it didn’t look good.” (As I said yesterday Johnson himself has questions to answer on drugs. I remember back in 2008 his Mayoral campaign panicking over his changing story when I asked about the issue.)
The huge field of 10 candidates confirmed yesterday confirms just how variegated Tory MP opinion is on a range of issues. Hancock winning David Lidington’s backing was a huge coup, but so too was Mordaunt backing Hunt and Davidson’s endorsement of Javid. Meanwhile, minnows like Esther McVey, Andrea Leadsom and Mark Harper all clearly have something that goes beyond just personal loyalty of friends. Rory Stewart said last night he now thinks he can get the 17 needed to make it to the big stage of the TV hustings (he has his full launch at the trendy Underbelly festival on London’s South Bank this afternoon).
Today’s official 1922 Committee hustings should give MPs a chance to not just hear the same old schtick again from each candidate, but to actually put them on the spot. Gove, Hunt, Raab, Harper, Leadsom and Javid are all due up. Johnson is due tomorrow.
Jeremy Corbyn had a difficult time last night at the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) meeting. The leadership are by now used to getting a verbal blast on a Monday night but this was as bad as it has been for a long time. What really made it different was the usually loyal Marie Rimmer speaking up (James Frith made his debut too though and was pretty blunt) to warn Corbyn that people who had long supported him were now abandoning him over the second referendum issue.
I wrote a full report HERE. It’s worth pointing out that there were also some voices from Leave areas (Helen Jones and Caroline Flint) that cautioned against patronising Leave voters, but perhaps the most important takeaway of last night was Corbyn promising to ‘evolve’ the policy. Let’s see how he does that, and when. Shadow cabinet meets today.
Watch Victoria Derbyshire drop the c-bomb, instead of the H-bomb. Yesterday when Jeremy Hunt was asked if he was “continuity Theresa May” he replied: “Anyone who knows what my last name rhymes with will know I’ve been called a whole lot worse”.
The BBC Licence Fee announcement yesterday was something that will have caught the attention of pensioners much more than any twists and turns in the Tory race. If you’re one of the four million over-75s who now face paying a bill from next year, you may well not blame the BBC but the Tory government. No wonder, Theresa May wants the Corporation to rethink. If the BBC sticks to its guns, it could yet force May - or a leadership replacement - to give it more cash to protect this long-standing benefit.
The jobless figures this morning again saw a drop in unemployment and boosted what the Tory party calls ‘the jobs miracle’. But yesterday’s ONS stats on manufacturing were truly worrying. The biggest monthly decline since 2002 and the second-worst month for manufacturing output growth since comparable records began in 1997. And this is even before any impact Brexit may have.
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